belonged, he said, to the former kingdom of Austrasia. He had no trouble
in mastering it, almost all the imperial forces being in Hungary,
Austria, and in those cantons where the Ottomans had called for them. The
town of Treves humbly recognised the King of France as its lord and
suzerain. Its fine fortifications were levelled at once, and our
victories were, unhappily, responsible for the firing, pillage, and
devastation of almost the whole Electorate. For the Duke of Crequi,
faithful executor of the orders of Louvois, imagined that a sovereign is
only obeyed when he proves himself stern and inflexible.

In the first years of my favour, the Marquis de Louvois enjoyed my entire
confidence, and, I must admit, my highest esteem. Independently of his
manners, which are, when he wishes, those of the utmost amiability, I
remarked in him an industrious and indefatigable minister, an intelligent
man, as well instructed in the mass as in details; a mind fertile in
resources, means, and expedients; an administrator, a jurist, a
theologian, a man of letters and of affairs, an artist, an agriculturist,
a soldier.

Loving pleasure, yet knowing how to despise it in favour of the needs of
the State and the care of affairs, this minister concentrated in his own
person all the other ministries, which moved only by his impulse and
guiding hand.

Did the King, followed by his whole Court, arrive in fearful weather by
the side of some vast and swollen river, M. de Louvois, alighting from
his carriage, would sweep the horizon with a single glance. He would
designate on the spot the farms, granaries, mills, and chateaux necessary
to the passage of a fastidious king on his travels. A general repast,
appropriate and sufficient, issued at his voice as it had been from the